Broken Memories
by MailMare
Summary: "Everyone has their bad days. Nobody doesn't have one."    A tragic accident for the Cutie Mark Crusaders leaves the group traumatised, and they remember their dark days. May be disturbing in further chapters.
1. The Long Icy Road to Nowhere

**This is my attempt at writing an upsetting story, and... wait for it... explaining ALL the ponies many issues. It was so god damn hard creating a couple and even harder to write them, but I've worked really hard. I'm awful at writing scary things without making myself depressed so some parts may make you do a double take. Enjoy. I can't do exclamation marks because I'm still depressed :(**

Applejack looked over her baby sister lying wrapped in powder white sheets. An oxegen mask was fastened over her mouth and several tubes stuck into her veins. Apple Bloom's eyes were closed lightly as she slept and her forehead was sweaty from the chemicals inside her.

The cowgirl couldn't look any longer. It was her fault too. When they told her they would be "Cutie Mark Crusader Chemical Creators," she didn't realise they were using the ones from the school lab and not their toy science kit. If she had... none of this would have happened.

They had created a glue solvent, and inhaled too much. Apple Bloom had come out worst ; she had attempted to glue her cut knee shut and it had gone into her bloodstream.

Applejack glanced down the corridor. Next door was Rarity crying over Sweetie Belle who had severe brain damage, and after that Scootaloo, with the other four. She had no family and lived in care. Rainbow Dash, who had been like a sister to her, was taking it very badly. She hadn't talked for 9 hours in shock, and silently wept over the ill filly.

After looking at her sister for a little longer, she suddenly realised how tired she was.

She kissed Applebloom's warm forehead goodnight, and ambled over to the cold stiff hospital bed. Then Applejack wriggled under the cover and lay facing her sister. She would sleep facing her.

The orange mare blinked away the last remaining tears away and closed them. She let sleep wash over her, and before she knew it she was asleep. No dreams, good or bad, she was too tired to dream.

After what seemed like minutes, she opened her eyes to find the room was lit by the weak sun and her friends standing around her, all looking depressed.

"Wha's wrong?" she asked, assuming the worst, "is ma' li'l sister okay?"

"Oh she's fine," smiled back Twilight, who was doing her best to keep everything calm, "she'll just be in here a little while longer. Sweetie Belle will be out in a couple of days and Scootaloo a week. Apple Bloom will be out just after them, much better." Applejack sighed quietly.

Then she got out of bed and trotted to her sister's bedside and gazed at her. Almost as if she had realised Applejack was there, Apple Bloom's eyes began to flicker, and after a minute, blinked open.

"Apple Bloom!" cried Applejack, and she hugged her sister like she could never let go. Apple Bloom winced a little but did her best to return the hug.

"It hurts Applejack," she whined, "being in here an' all. I wan'na go home." Her big sister nodded back.

"We all have our bad days, but it makes the good days bet'er. Ev'rybody needs a bad day to be normal. Nobody doesn't have one," she said wisely.

The others tilted their heads, interested.

Apple Bloom nodded sleepily back, and slowly fell back asleep.

"So..." said Rainbow Dash.

"So what?" asked the cowgirl.

"What was your's?" asked Dash. The other four waited for a response.

"That is nothin' to talk about on a lit'le filly's sickbed! And it is none of your business." snapped Applejack. She turned her head away from her friends with her nose pointed in the air.

The other 5 took the message and left Apple Bloom's hospital room. As they went out the door, nostalgia hit Applejack like a slap.

_It was so cold... so cold that winter._ "Stop thinking about it..." Applejack thought to herself angrilly. That stupid pegasus had gone and uprooted what should have stayed at the back of her mind.

_And with a little filly too, she was about two months wasn't she? And you were only eight years old, the age she is now._ Applejack wanted to slap her own head, but was afraid that would get her removed from the ward. She wearilly walked over to her bed, and flopped down on it. Go to sleep Applejack, go to sleep...

The tiredness took over Applejack, and she dozed off, but her mind seized her dreams and turned them into her hidden memory.

_She had been a young filly, only eight or so, when her family had decided to go down to Fillydelphia for the winter holidays. Big Macintosh was about eleven, and Apple Bloom was a young baby, only two months._

_"Let Apple Bloom have her first winter in our home town. It'll be fun," her father had said._

_He was a fine stallion, a yellowy green with blonde hair, just like her's. He had amber eyes which Apple Bloom had, and strong legs like Big Macintosh. They all had a little bit of him inside them._

_They had organised a horse and carriage, which two colts had offered to pull, as they were looking for a bit of money to start off with in Fillydephia. Her mother and father had sat at the front to look at the views, so she was playing with her baby sister inside the coach._

_Their mother had left some apples in for them. Their lovely mother. She had been an orange shade too, with bright red hair and pale green eyes. Applejack remembered she could buck all the apples out of one tree with one leg. When she was young, an apple had fallen in her eye and damaged it, so she always wore her hair covering her right eye._

_The road was slippery with ice, but the two colts were very careful and went at a reasonable speed. That is, until they started talking to each other._

_They had decided to see who was the fastest, completely forgetting there was young children on board, and began galloping across the winded road._

_"Slow down boys!" her father had yelled, as the coach began to bump up and down. Apple Bloom had began to cry and she had clung on to her in attempt to comfort her, and hide her own fear._

_One of the colts had slipped, and the other didn't notice, and continued racing. Then the harness pulled, and he was tugged off the road and down a slope to a ditch._

_The coach had flipped over, her parents were flung off and the two colts crushed beneath the coach. Applejack had banged her head off the wall, but was fine. The baby was safely wrapped in her arms._

_After two minutes of silence, her big brother had gone outside. It was cold and windy, so she stayed inside. He didn't come back in for a few minutes, so she went outside to check._

_And found him outside, crying over the bodies of their two parents. The fall had killed them. Applejack remembered kissing her mother as hard as she could, convinced that would bring her back. It didn't._

_Apple Bloom's cries had brought them to realise, after hours of sobbing in the cold, that they couldn't stay here. They would freeze to death. Big Macintosh had told her that they needed to just walk forward, and not look back._

_So, with the two month old filly wrapped in a blanket hanging from Macintosh's mouth, they began to walk down the winded road, not sure if it was leading to Fillydelphia or Ponyville, just walking on and on. It wasn't snowing, it was the beginning of December, but the wind was so cold that sometimes she just wanted to curl up and fall asleep. Her big brother told her no, not to sleep, that's what killed._

_Months after, she still couldn't sleep._

_They walked on for around four days. She wasn't exactly sure how long, the hours melted into each other. Sometimes she would carry the baby, to help her big brother. Sometimes he would carry her, when her legs crumpled into the ground. She had no idea how he kept walking, but he did._

_Finally, they reached a frozen over Ponyville. People asked, "Where are your parents?" or, "What are you doing out in the cold?" The three kept quiet, and kept on walking._

_They reached the farm they used to live in. Their grandmother was asleep when they came in, and they didn't want to wake her up. Big Macintosh lit the fireplace, and lay Apple Bloom beside it, then let Applejack curl into Apple Bloom. He didn't take any heat, he just sat in his father's chair and looked empty._

_When they woke up, Granny Smith was waiting for them, confused. Big Macintosh explained through misty eyes, while Applejack cried. Their grandmother hugged them tight, and promised she would look after them, and not to cry. Even Apple Bloom cried, like she knew. _

_They never told her what had happened. She was still too young. It could scar her. There would be a right time, but it wasn't now. Not now._

_She grew up believing that they had all been brought by the four-winged pegasus to Granny Smith. Every night Applejack said a prayer to her parents, and every night she prayed for Apple Bloom._

_The little filly memories still gave her nightmares. And when Twilight nearly ruined getting rid of the snow when they wrapped up winter, she could have killed her. How her parents life was lost to the ice, and how their's were nearly lost to the cold. How could she have made more chance for suffering? How could she?_

Applejack woke up suddenly, covered in cold sweat. She looked at her little sister, sleeping innocently. With a hoof, she wiped the sweat off her face, sat breathing for a minute, and looked back at Apple Bloom.

"There will be a right time, but it's not now. Not now," she thought, and sat thinking there the entire night.

**I'm basically going to explain everypony's bad days. They will get worse as they go on, so if you found this difficult I wouldn't reccomend reading the rest. R&R.**


	2. Only If For A Night

**Thank you for all your lovely comments! I was actually going to do Rarity raising Sweetie Belle without any parents but then episode 5 came out and showed Sweetie actually lived with her parents, so I'm going to have to change it.**

**Dash and Pinkie have pretty disturbing stories. Fluttershy and Rarity are sympathetic ones, and Twilight and Applejack are going to have bad days, or months. I might even throw in a Derpy one to put CrossEyed in more detail. Well, do your best to enjoy :)**

Twilight walked home deep in thought after she left the hospital.

Spike was home alone, so there would be A LOT of cleaning up to do, and she would need to buy more food for the fridge. Then she would have to write Celestia a letter and practise her spells. But no matter how much she thought about her to-do list, Applejack's words kept springing to mind.

It was true ; everypony has a skeleton in their closet. Everypony has a dark cloud.

As if on cue, it began to lightly rain. The sky became greyer and greyer. With every puddle she saw a rippled depressed face reflected in it, and every time she looked up raindrops hit her eyes*. Her sad thoughts were beginning to swamp her.

However, after two minutes the library came into view, and she hurried to get inside. Sure enough, Spike was sitting in a pile of candy wrappers, asleep, his head in the ice-cream tub. Twilight laughed, and gently woke him up so he could get a bath.

After two hours of cleaning up, writing letters, reading up on spells, drying a baby dragon, making dinner then cleaning that up, Twilight decided to call it a day and went to bed.

The rain was still going, more heavy than before. Again, she kept thinking about her bad days. Just like Applejack, sleep came over her and willed the sad memories into her dream.

_She was in a small pastel coloured room. Sweet pictures covered the walls, and it smelt faintly of milk and clay. Twilight was about to relax when she had the strangest feeling of deja vu. Confused, she gave another double check when another sound caught her ear. Children's laughter._

_The walls seemed to close in for a minute, and Twilight had to steady herself on the table, which was at her knees. She remembered it here, a little too well._

_Magic kindergarten._

_And suddenly, the table became taller, as did the doors and windows. According to the reflection in the sun-shaped mirror she was now a five year old filly._

_Twilight gasped and attempted to use her magic. For the first time in around 8 years, it was a struggle to use her horn. She tried for around two minutes, before accepting she couldn't use her magic._

_Just as she was about to go, a shrill bell rang. Twilight jumped - the little fillies and colts would be coming back. She hid in the bookbox, like she had used to do._

_There was a pitter-patter of little hooves as the young unicorns ran in. To the filly in the bookbox it sounded like an earthquake, and she whimpered. Awful memories came flooding back, like a rush of water._

_She was tipped out the box, laughed at for being so weird. The others snickered when she put up her hoof to answer - but the teacher didn't notice. Twilight was isolated and alone as the others paired up. She was left to do her report alone - and everybody laughed when she did the best alone than they did together._

_Suddenly, the table grew and so did she. The walls faded from the pastels to pale green, and the cutesy pictures changed to scientific ones. She recongised the x-ray of a unicorn's horn, a pegasus' wings and an earth pony's legs and felt like crying._

_The taunting voices became lower pitched and more of them. She was at her elementary school._

_The bell rang and she was forced outside. Twilight tried to run to the fillie's restroom but two colts grabbed her tail and she fell flat on her face. The stones grazed her skin and she bit back tears._

_"Got toilet problems egghead?" one taunted, spraying his spit on her face._

_"Yeah, galloping dieorreah!" agreed the other and the playground burst out laughing. Twilight put her hooves over her head and wished the ground would just swallow her up. _

_When she opened her eyes, it was the Celestia Academy yard. Although she had private lessons, she still had to go outside like everypony else._

_Now it was much much better._

_Nobody laughed or taunted or teased her because nobody seemed to know she was aive. She didn't talk to anypony and simply studied._

_There was an empty hole inside her. It hurt sometimes at night, and Twilight filled that hole with books. But no matter how busy she was reading it throbbed for a friend._

_And unicorns have a deep connection with their emotions... sometimes it helps. In this case it didn't help in the slightest. In fact, it made it far worse, as Twilight fell down a deep deep hole of depression._

_She had scars on her wrists.  
>Her parent's worried<br>She hid away from others and cut herself, and would smile almost in a trance as black ichor beaded across the cut._

_Twilight had a deep hole where her heart should have been. _

_Her days in Ponyville had filled that hole._

_The unicorns became less sophisticated and lost their horns. The garden grew long grass and the roses blossomed to wild flowers. Standing there were her friends, smiling, beckoning her to come. Happily Twilight ran towards them and they all greeted each other, and Twilight smiled._

Her eyes opened, and now she was back in her room. Twilight shook her head, and pulled off the duvet, and she blinked heavily.

Almost as if she was in a trance, she trotted towards the kitchen, and with her magic slid open the kitchen drawer. A knife floated up, surrounded in purple haze. Twilight followed it with her eyes as it made it's way to her foreleg, and just as it touched her skin she flinched and the magic stopped for a second.

It slipped and cut in deeply. The unicorn gasped and threw the knife away with her magic.

"Shit!" she cursed, cantering to the tap and running cold water over the steadily flowing wound. Tears began to sting as the water ran black with unicorn blood, and Twilight breathed unevenly, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Her eyes darted from the wound to the blood stained carpet to the discarded knife. Wind rapped at the window, and it laughed at her. Mocking her, making her want to just run away. Where was the Princess when you needed her?

Another sharp memory wave punched the unicorn in the stomach and she fell against the counter for support, straining.

_Up on the mountain side, the world almost looked beautiful. A teenage Twilight looked around with bitter tears, up at the clouds with no pegasi, the ground with no earth ponies and the town with no unicorns in sight._

_The moon looked down on her ashamed, and the mare hung her head in shame. It had come to this - just too much to handle. She couldn't take it anymore, and nobody would care when she was gone._

_Her parents had only sent her to the academy to get rid of her, Celestia was always busy, there were no friends to miss her, no ponies to mourn her grave. Everypony would be fine, especially her. Up in Heaven, no worries or troubles, just eternal peace. It was in her grasp._

_The wind gently kissed her cheek goodbye, and did it's best to wipe her tears. _

_"I pray to my t-two princesses, Celestia and Luna, to wish, to wish me luck-k in the Afterlife. May my soul.. b-be blessed.." Twilight stammered, edging towards the edge, "and.. and peace.. to... EQUESTRIA!"_

_And with her last words and wish spoken, the mare cantered and leapt._

_Everything went by so slowly, the stars and moon becoming smaller and the mountain growing up. Wind flowed through her mane ; though it was her death hour, she had never felt so alive._

_And in the insanity of it all, Twilight gave a shaky smile, which turned into a stammering giggle then a stuttering, crazy laugh. Her mind was blank. Finally, Twilight collided.. with feathers._

_The unicorn looked up to see she was resting on the back of a white alicorn, feet from the ground. For a moment she was stunned, then relieved, then angry._

_"HOW COULD YOU?" she screamed at the Princess, striking her body, "HOW COULD YOU? THE HAPPIEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE RUINED! I WANTED TO.. LET ME GO!"_

_The mare struggled, looking down at the rushing forest below, and attempted to leap. Pale yellow magic pulled her back up, and through tear-filled eyes she saw the furious face of Celestia. _

_"Twilight Sparkle," she announced back on the ground, "after my acceptance of you and tolerance of your self-pity, you attempt suicide? You think that's going to make everything alright for you? You think it won't leave others empty and ashamed? You are so selfish you don't care how others will be ruined, just how much your life isn't worth?"_

_The unicorn glared back up. "I'm not worth anything, Princess," she sneered, "but you wouldn't know that you posh snob. You haven't lived, bitch." She screamed as the alicorn pinned her to a tree._

_"Oh yeah, ungrateful? I've been alive for more than a milenium, I've lived! I've seen wars and close ones die for me! The ponies I trusted, turning on me! My sister rebelling and trying to stop life! You have never known the feeling of having the one you love the most destroyed before your eyes. I never had parents, I was born from a drop of sunlight! My sister was created through a moonbeam, and I cared for her! So, bitch, I've lived."_

_Twilight looked deep into the glaring eyes and came to weeping. The last thing she saw was the horn touching her forehead and her memory going.. going... gone..._

The unicorn awoke lying in her kitchen. She looked around, in a daze. Everything, her life, her teacher, her memories... were lies. Overcome with nausea, she fainted on the carpet, in the kitchen of the library tree.

**Unicorns have black blood by the way, pegasi have yellow and earth ponies red. I decided. So, Twilight's became a bit nasty... writing just kind of takes over don't it? R&R? Please?**


End file.
